{Kharli Aweing Over Rain Episode 114,78?}

{Kharli aweing over Rain episode 114,78?}

First...It's been a while. I know, I'm sorry. But Rain, this series has never left my mind while I was away, and I'm happy that I'm able to come back to this and resubmerge myself in this extravagant world that you have created.

If my memories are correct, I believe that this is the first time that we see Eunuch Kim (Namjoon) calling Chun-ja his wife and Han-Jae his son and my heart couldn't have gotten more full. I have loved watching their relationship bloom and blossom throughout the series and for it to come to this moment makes me so warm. They deserve this so much and I'm truly happy that they're able to love each other and spend the rest of their forever the way that they want to.

I love that you can feel the love and beauty from Namjoon’s words trickle into the uneasy tone the letter. There is uncertainty in the midst of bubbling turmoil that's lingering in the background as he tries to console his lover, and the way you wrapped these two contrasting images was amazing.

With this series, there's always been this seesaw event of losses and gains. Whenever there is a period of comfort and easiness, tension and strained relationships are never too far away. Now that we're seeing Yoongi step into himself and grow not only in age but mentally with each passing chapter, things such as lobbying due to the economic state of the kingdom and the marriage are a forthcoming notion. Sacrifices might have to be made. His happiness. Someone else's. The foreshadowing of what might come if an arranged marriage occurs definitely brings a lot of emotions, but as Namjoon wrote, things are different now and so I hope and have faith that things will get better. Eventually (because it's you and I know that I have to cry a little first before I see sunshine).

I'm looking forward to continuing this, Rain. You are the greatest and each chapter of this series entrances me more and more. I'm addicted. Sending you lots of love, dear friend. You deserve the galaxy 💕🌠

trivia: june 1870.

a hastily scribbled letter the sender wishes he did not have to write.

pairing: joseon king!yoongi x reader words: 406 contains: our favorite eunuch returns!

moonlit throne index. this is drabble 32. start from the beginning?

My beloved wife,

I miss you and our son more than words can say. Not a day slips by without my thinking of your warm smiles and delicious cooking, but I am afraid I must stay here at the palace for some time longer. There is trouble.

Keep reading

《He always knew how to make you feel loved. Feel wanted.》

Ryen,

Hi, my love. This, reading one of your works, has been a long time coming, and I’m really glad that I read it last night. Reread it this rainy morning so that my thoughts could be more coherent and so that I could submerge myself inside of this beautifully written piece.

Your writing is incredibly emotive, and it felt like as I was placed from scene to scene, it was easy to just live there for a while. Reside in the lustful yet loving relationships the reader experienced that would eventually frame her lifetime and future.

We first have Hoseok. Energetic. Electric. A passionate frenzy of what it feels like to just simply feel alive. What it feels like to be on a roller coaster or skydiving. You may not know which way is up or down, but you know that it feels amazing, and you never want it to stop. Unless, of course, you have acrophobia or aren't an adrenaline junkie. He’s someone that people make movies about. The young adult coming of age films where the main character is at her peak and just says “fuck it” or rather “fuck him” because she knows that he wants it to, and maybe it’s okay to take a risk just this once.

Then there's Yoongi. The ultimate depiction of softness and comfort, mixed with the underlying note of sensuality and carnality. The type of person who makes you realize that you've sunk too deep before you even stepped foot into the water, but you like it there. You like how it overwhelms your senses against your skin and you like seeing new forms of life before your eyes. Something dangerous yet something so beautiful that you simmer in the newfound peace and quiet before feeling the anxiety that things are a bit too forbearing.

Seokjin was a juxtaposition to the others. Someone who makes you feel without thinking. Someone who shows you what it’s like to live in the moment without any remorse or consequence. Just pure unadulterated pleasure without rocking the boat too far.

Each of their stories is a puzzle piece, fitting so perfectly inside the heart and reminiscence of the reader. Each brought a unique wave of high and low. Rises and falls that work as stepping stones to build the peak of the reader’s romances and affinities:

Namjoon.

You felt like a wild animal, caged within his bulky arms and roped in with his lustful gaze.

Namjoon is a smokey and sultry mix of intensity and idleness. Of love and lust. Someone who brings the unearthed parts of you to the forefront and broadcasts them in a space that feels safe and warm, because to him, they are the most beautiful things in the world and it would be a shame for you to not know it yourself.

But his was the one that looked right back without wavering. Without doubt. Time stopped; you weren’t counting down the nights; feelings existed and lasted like a reddened hearth.

This is something people dream about. He is someone that people dream about. And I’m grateful that the reader was able to experience what it feels like to have that for herself and find her own unique sense of peace.

Ryen, this was such a beautiful story, and I loved reading every single word of it. It's honestly a shame that I didn't read this sooner. Nevertheless, I loved it, and I can't wait to read more of your works. I'm sending you all of my love, friend💕

with him. (m) | hyung line

title: with him. (m) pairing: hyung line x reader(f) genre/rating: 18+ ; smut word count: 1.2k summary: in which you remember all the ones before him. warnings: language, house party, penetration, oral, breast play, sl*t/wh*re nicknames notes: this is just a quickie for the wonderful hyung line enthusiast @joheunsaram​ !! i don’t know what came over me bc this just.. produced itself, so happy birthday LOL i hope you like it! if you don’t, you can crumple it, chuck it in the bin, and pretend this never happened sdjklfsd. also, all pics other than the boys can be found on my aesthetic blog @brandisher​ 🤎

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With Hoseok, it started as a blur and ended as a blur. 

Keep reading

bloodlines

Now that most of the world’s population had become vampires, human blood was a rare commodity. And with your genetic immunity from the lamia trait keeping you very human, life had become a complicated game of hide and seek.

Pairing: Jimin x Female Reader

Genre: Vampire!Jimin; Fluff

Word Count: 600+

Part of the Seven Genre Drabble Challenge

Related storie(s): Just Like Before

Read on AO3

namjoon + honeymoon <3

It was your stupid husband’s idea to go to a tropical rain forest, so obsessed with the idea of seeing real sloths and rare birds that he didn’t stop to think about the gazillion mosquitoes that would be there, too. “Ugh, this hurts,” you whine for what has to be the millionth time, scratching at the numerous bites littering your calves. You’re not even safe in your lodging, a tiny little rental house with an air-con system as old as your grandmother.

Namjoon’s just come out of the bath, white towel draped around his waist to make him look like a Greek god. Stray water droplets cling to his shoulders and chest, sparkle under the yellow lamplight as he rounds the foot of the bed. Miraculously, he’s come out of the rain forest unscathed. You’re extremely jealous, but you comfort yourself with the fact that maybe your kids will get his superior anti-mosquito blood in their genes too. “Salve,” he says, plopping down on the edge of the bed with a tiny green jar of something. “The locals said it would help.”

You scoff. “The locals said,” you mimic, but snatch it out of his hand nonetheless.

In truth, you’re actually having a lot of fun. After the numerous Bridezilla meltdowns you had over the course of your wedding planning, letting Namjoon plan the honeymoon was a blessing in disguise; not only did you have one less thing to worry about, but your wildlife-loving husband has the prettiest smile when he’s excited about toucans. “It’s what you get for not wearing bug repellant,” he teases now, discarding his towel as he crawls up the bed towards you. Oh.

Wrapping your hands around his shoulders, you barely manage one brush of your lips against his before he’s stripping you of your nightgown. “Not my fault I have the juiciest blood,” you frown, shivering when his slightly cold skin presses against yours.

Namjoon chuckles, a sound so low and deep, it goes straight to your pussy. “Yeah?” he hums, settling the weight of his body over you. He’s heavy as fuck, but being suffocated by your husband’s hot and heavy body isn’t the worst way to go out. His lips find their place against your cheek, two plush pillows that leave a faint kiss against your skin. “But now you’re covered in mosquitos bites.”

Pulling him closer, you shift your hips from side to side until his cock is nestled between your folds, angry tip kissing your clit. You shudder. “So?” you sigh, “you’ll cover them up for me anyway.”

Namjoon laughs, kissing the corner of your mouth. “That I will.” And he does, sucking and kissing along your skin as he goes. His lips traverse the length of your body, suckling against your tits until you’re whimpering and begging for him to stop. He only stops when both nipples are two, twin peaks, slick and shiny with his saliva. Then, between your thighs. He sucks a painful mark at the juncture where your thigh meets your body, doesn’t let go even when you dig your fingers into his scalp and tug him away. “Relax,” he says, suave, smooth, that stupidly hot bastard.

His pillowy lips kiss down the inside of each leg, tongue peeking out to swipe against your swollen bites. He doesn’t suck on those, knows that it’ll only exacerbate the itchiness, but it’s the thought that counts. He does, however, practically leave you covered in his saliva, licking every inch of skin he can get to. You’re left feeling sticky and wet, a sensation that soon fades into the background when he gets his mouth on your clit.

He nudges the bud back and forth, like you’re nothing more than a sweet for him to play with. Panting, you barely manage to plead your case for more, filling the air of the lodging with sniffles and sobs as Namjoon licks between your thighs. Eventually, it’s your trembling hand reaching for his — the one with the ring on it — that convinces him to help you out.

One finger dips into your achingly hot core, tongue swirling circles around your clit. You buck forward, against his mouth, as the pleasure begins to simmer in your center. Namjoon takes his time with you, does his best to draw out every droplet of ecstasy from you. He loves the sounds, the tiny jerks of your body, the way his name tumbles off your lips. “Joon,” you sob, “no more— please.”

Only then does he let you come, milking your cum out of you with a never-ending series of kitten licks against your clit. You quiver beneath him, body wracked with the aftershocks of such a pleasant orgasm. “Good girl,” he hums, kissing the soft skin of the inside of your thigh. “Always so good.”

sh. | ot7 | chapter eight

PAIRING ot7 x reader

RATING Explicit. 18+.

GENRE smut. fluff. angst. nonidol au. wildnerness au. roommates au. friends to lovers.

SUMMARY Six months of quarantine have kept you apart. Somehow the distance sparks something new in each of you: questions, unfinished conversations, threads once chased now left cold. So when your roommate invites you to come with him to a mysterious house in the mountains with your friends, how could you even think of saying no?

WC 6k

WARNINGS AND TAGS explicit conversation about sexual acts. animal encounter.

← || series m.list || →

©️ wwilloww do not repost, translate, or use my stories without my permission.

AN: i must gift my entire heart to the two lovelist beta readers @thatlongspringnight and @calixwrites . working with you allows me to get to the root of the story, and i feel like the whole creative process comes to life when i get to talk with you and learn from you. ugh. i can't say it enough: you are the best.

in other news, i cut this chapter in half because i couldn't keep track of everything that was happening. a new chapter should be polished and finished soon :)

it's almost been a year since we started on this wacky journey together. and so to everyone who's stuck around with me: thank you.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Namjoon’s voice rumbles softly in your ear, pointing out the bedrooms of your friends, the passageways, the art on the walls.

The details, though, are drowned out by the hammering of your heart in your ears. It’s a strange sensation, this moment, arm captured by your beautiful roommate while everything stews inside. It’s like the library: two sides of the world smushed into a space too small to hold it all. On one side, the outside, you have the warmth that radiates from him, especially when he pauses his good natured lecture for a moment to pull you just a little tighter against his side and smile a little crookedly down at you. But then inside, the acid that’s started to pool in your chest burns in the heat of anxiety.

“…I mean, you remember seeing Kim Chong-Haks piece, right? When you really think about it, it’s just like this amalgamation—” Namjoon pauses, voice dying as he looks down at you. “You’re distracted.”

“Huh?” You snap out of the spiral of your thoughts to smile sheepishly up at your tall roommate. “Sorry. Can you blame me? A, uh, lot has happened today.”

“No. I can’t.” He nods, ever the one to understand. “I can stop talking. If you want.”

“No, no, don’t. It’s nice.”

“Oh.” It’s that slow smile that takes over his face that pulls you a little closer to the warmth. A little closer to courage. “Okay. I can do that.”

You continue on through the house, and this time you really do listen to him. Hearing about everything—art, philosophy, life—through his eyes does what it always does: it brings you back to the world. And for a moment, the anxiety in your stomach settles.

It’s not until you come across a familiar hallway that you interrupt his stream of thought.

“What’s behind that door?”

“Hm? Oh.” Namjoon drops your arm and wanders down the hallway. You follow him. “I’m not sure, really.” He grins at you. “Let’s find out?”

The excitement of it all adds a skip to your step and soon you both are standing at the large door.

Namjoon reaches to turn the doorknob, but it doesn’t budge.

“Earlier,” you say, “There was a key here.”

“A key?” Namjoon looks at you skeptically.

“A key.”

“Huh, strange.” He steps back for a moment, eyeing the door like he can think it open, before giving it one last rattle. No luck. “Well, I’ll find the key later. There’s a drawer here somewhere with all the missing keys and lightbulbs and instruction manuals. There’s always a drawer.”

“There’s always a drawer,” you echo.

Namjoon turns on his heel to stride back down the hallways, but you’re stuck there, staring at the door, wondering what this large house is keeping hidden securly behind her walls. How many more missing keys and locked doors are hiding around another corner you haven’t turned?

“You coming?” Namjoon calls, already at the end of the hallway.

“Yeah, yeah.” You hurry to catch up. The rest of the walk to the back door disappears in a blur.

When you bend down to tie your shoe, Namjoon stoops down, earning a little squeal of excitement from you as he snatches the shoe from you and holds it out of your reach.

“Let me.” His voice reverberates deep and low.

“What?”

“Let me,” he insists a second time. Taking your shoe, he lifts your leg onto his knee, slips the shoe onto your foot, and ties it tight and sturdy before looking up at you. “There you go.”

The two of you stare at each other for a long moment, half smiles teasing your lips, the recollection of tension — of his hands in your hair, his lips against yours, body pressing you into the books as if he could keep you as a memory — the history of the library strung between you like spider silk. And then, eyes still locked on you, he leans down and presses a kiss to your knee.

“Oh,” you breathe.

He grins. Stands. Offers you a hand.

“Thanks,” you say, not really sure how to translate that stirring beast inside you. “For today. For everything. For—” You motion to the room around you. “For this.”

He just nods and opens the door to the backyard to follow you out.

The air that meets you on the other side tastes like the color gold. Like leaves falling, like the sun shattering through the foliage, and like life getting ready for slumber beneath the rich topsoil. You breathe in deep.

“I could get high on this,” you murmur, and Namjoon chuckles. He leads you down the hill behind the house to where a naturally shaped pool glistens down below and a familiar figure is lounging on a large boulder.

“Hobi!” you call, and the sound that emerges is eager and excited and — it surprises you. Joy, reaching for joy. You warm a little inside, and the edge of anxiety cools down to a manageable simmer. The dark haired main perks up immediately, turning to greet you. “Hi, you were looking for me?”

“Babe.” A grin spreads as sweet as the pet name sounds. This time you don’t fight it. You give in.

“Hi.”

He expected a fight. You always did fight him, that signature sizable grin spreading across your features as you did. And he always did like the contest of it, the game of it all, but now — the lack of resistance? But something more than that, something like eagerness. It has a strange kind of warmth to it. He thinks he likes it.

As Hoseok sits up, he glances between you and Namjoon, and you do the same and it’s then that he notices. It feels like a secret. It’s passed between you and Namjoon like a small, carefully folded note, clear to Hoseok or anyone that might look upon the two of you. The contents, though, are a little harder to make out.

Namjoon bends down and plants a hesitant kiss on your cheek and Hoseok watches as you freeze up beneath the touch. You’re hyper-aware of what Hobi must be thinking: Namjoon wasn’t usually all that touchy, right?

But then you’re cackling in embarrassment and smacking Namjoon on the shoulder and saying “See ya, bud, thanks for the tour.” The look Joon shoots back is a little confused and he laughs nervously before walking back to the house. But suddenly the look on Hobi’s face isn’t so nervous after all as he takes in the overwhelmingly “dad vibes” of the whole situation. This is normal. This is all normal.

None of this is normal. Normal was left behind in January.

The two of you stand there a little awkwardly, sizing one another up, silence settling uncomfortably between you before you both blurt at the same time:

“I was thinking—”

“I wanted to say—”

It rushes out of the both of you like a stream undammed, toppling, churning, so it’s hard to see to the root of it. And as quickly as it pours out, both of you are shoving it back in.

“Oh.”

“God, sorry.”

The two of you stare at each other for a moment before bursting out into soft laughter.

“Want to go for a walk?” Hoseok asks.

You eye the steep slopes that border the house on every side. Nothing here is simply a walk. Everything is a hike.

“Oh. Yeah. Sure!” The words feel stilted and awkward as they leave your lips. Even after it’s agreed, the two of you stare at each other for a horribly long moment, sentences unstrung and unsung humming behind your gazes, chilling you more than the mild autumn air could. Neither of you sure how to speak them into the world, and both of you determined that the silence is reproach in the other. At this point, the silence has become an unspoken agreement. The long drawl of emptiness has been safer than the promise of hope.

You take the first step, desperate to break the tension. Hoseok lets out an audible breath of relief when you do and matches your pace.

When you start walking, like it's an impulse, the tension shared becomes each your own again, stuffed back into your chests alongside everything unsaid.  There’s something about moving though, especially through a beauty this dense, that shakes the frozen sounds within you both. As you walk it becomes easier. A joke that nears Jin’s dastardly level of dad joke slips out—why did the tree worry that he would never get his leaves back after autumn? He didn’t be-leaf in himself!—and suddenly he’s laughing, cackling, breaking through the silence of the forest.

It’s like the forest comes alive, too. You know it was there before and yet the birdsong is stronger, the valley warmer, the trees more golden. You beam up at him.

“You know, this is the first time we’ve actually spent time alone together since we got here,” he says.

“Well, you know, except every night that we spend in the same bed.”

“That doesn’t count,” he laughs, but its a strained kind of sound, like a memory gentle but with a pinpoint of pain beneath the softness. “We’re sleeping! And it especially doesn’t count when you’re always slipping in late, coming from who knows where, doing who knows what.”

Doing who knows who, your mind corrects. Warmth flushes through you as you recall it all. The whirlwind of bodies, gasps, pleasure that the last week has been — and guilt. Guilt tinges the edge of the memory as you glance at Hoseok. He looks at you a moment too long, like he is trying to gage what exactly you have been up to, and then moves on.

“No time for bedtime stories or a healthy gossip session or—” His eye lights with something and a flush overcomes his face.

“Or what?” You prod him with your elbow, grinning. “Or what!”

“Nothing!”

“Oh, come on,” you urge. “You can tell me anything! We don’t have secrets here!”

He looks at you. At all the unspoken things beneath your tongue. He can see that they’re there, but not what they are. “We don’t?”

You want to swallow your words. “Well,” you begin slowly, no idea what to say, trying to navigate the internal maze that is a horrible mix of hope, guilt, excitement, fear, longing, and, well, something else that doesn’t quite have a name. “Maybe we shouldn’t have secrets.”

The trail, once broad, has now tapered into a narrow switchback. It’s harder to breathe at an elevation this high.

Around you, the trees stand tall in their age. The deeper you go, the older the growth seems to be, young and thin aspens turning into swarths of the entangled tree, and heavy evergreens with thick bellies, stretching so high into the sky you’re not sure where the tree ends and the world begins. Beneath you, carpets of pine needles soften all sounds so that even the life, humming around you, feels like it has softened.

When you breathe in, it’s like swallowing nature. It’s the kind of air that makes your lungs ache with the edge of a light chill; there’s comfort there, despite the ache of a new season. Everything your relationship with him is supposed to feel like.

“Well, what do you think about it?” Hobi’s voice shatters through the stillness, just a little too quiet for him, for his body, and you watch him shift, awkward, listening as the forest swallows the sounds.

“Hm?”

“Yoongi’s proposal.”

“I don’t know,” you lie quickly. A flash of guilt spikes through you. You just told him there shouldn’t be any secrets between the two of you. And yet here you are, digging the distance of another secret.

“Don’t you think that seven penises is a lot of penises?” Hoseok cocks a curious eyebrow.

“Dicks,” you correct, grimacing. “Cocks, whatever — not penises. I — I hate that word. It’s icky.”

“Peni, then,” Hobi laughs.

“No!” you laugh, falling into him. “That’s worse!” His hands come out to steady you, and you lean into the touch like it’s magnetized.

When you look at him, there it is again. That freezing thing, that moment of extension, that sweetness singing between the two of you. That history — that January night — balled up and tossed in the corner to gather cobwebs, now resummoned to the surface. You think he might even want to lean into it too. He holds your gaze just a little too long, delight creeping across his features. Until he blinks and turns away, and the moment becomes lost to time. Just another sketch scribbled quickly, only to be crumpled and tossed away.

“It’s not really how I expected things to go,” Hoseok chuckles, running a hand through his hair. You can’t help but watch the way his fingers part the now long strands like ships in a darkened sea. You blink. Shake your head.

“Wh—oh, yeah. Me neither.”

“No?” When he looks at you it’s like he sees right through you. Like he knows what you’ve been thinking about him. About all of your friends.

“N-no,” you laugh nervously. “What? It’s not like I’m out here, mind in the gutter, imagining fucking my friends all the time.”

He laughs now, really laughs. “I gotta stop you there, I know for a fact that your mind is always in the gutter.”

“Nuh-uh! ’S’not!”

“Oh really? So never? You’ve never thought about it?” He’s stopped walking and turned to face you.

“No!”

“C’mon.” He levels his gaze with yours. “Give ‘em to me. Your tequila thoughts.”

The phrase brings back January, the sharp perfume of Patron on your breath. The things you had spilled into that night. The taste of it on his tongue. Is he? Is that what he’s referring to?

“I don’t really know what you mean by that.”

“I just mean. Tequila loosens your tongue. Ridiculously. But I know you. I know those thoughts are hanging out up here—” He brings his hand to tap lightly at your temple, “no matter what. Sober or tipsy or whatever. So c’mon. Give ‘em to me.”

“What do you want me to say? That I wanna dom Jin in the bedroom? Tie him up and make him call me daddy?”

“You wouldn’t.”

“What?”

“You wouldn’t want to dom him, I don’t think. Maybe for a little while. To feel what it’s like, for a moment. But at the end of the day, I think you…” He trails off, gaze flicking between your eyes and your lips. Then he shrugs. “But who am I to say.”

You sputter. “Who are you to say, indeed.”

He laughs. “I don’t know, maybe you are.”

The two of you stare at each other for what feels like the longest minute on earth, measuring the other one up, testing the next step.

Finally you say, “I don’t know, it seems like you might be projecting.” You turn and continue walking.

“What?”

“Seems like you might be the one who wants to fuck and dominate all our friends in the bedroom.”

Hobi laughs. “Where on earth did you ever get that opinion?”

“Well I don’t know. You’re very difficult to read. Maybe you are projecting. Maybe you’re the one daydreaming about finally getting Joonie on his knees for you.”

“I’m difficult to read?”

“Absolutely.”

“Oh.” Hobi is silent for a long minute, and you’re surprised, shocked by the look of grief on his face. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?”

“I never meant to be hard to read.”

“That’s not something to apologize for. It’s okay.”

“Well, not really, not when I’ve been trying to say. Say. Things.”

“Say what?”

The two of you stop. The trail you took was supposed to be the one you had done that fateful day with Jimin, leading you to an outlook over the sprawling valleys of the mountain range. But instead, you’ve found yourself at the entrance to a ravine, the steep walls of rock rising before you to reveal a narrow passageway that snakes up the mountain. While usually the elevation precludes a lot of humidity, the ecosystem before you is one bursting with the last strains of summered life: moss and lichen clinging to the rock, a small waterfall trickling down the slippery rock.

Behind you, the forest hums with afternoon business, the trees blanketed in reds and golds. In stark contrast, silence spills out from the ravine.

Hoseok doesn’t answer your question. Instead, his jaw has dropped, a slow smile spreading across his features as he takes in the sight before him. “Oh. How… beautiful.”

He is.

“I miss you,” you blurt out. “I miss you a lot.”

Hoseok takes a long look at you.

“You say it like you’re unsure if I missed you back.”

“I mean, I don’t know—”

He cuts you off. “Goddamnit, of course I missed you.” He reaches out for you, taking your wrists into his hands and pulling you closer. “Of course it felt so strange to have to basically start a whole new way of life and not have you there. I missed you so goddamn much. I missed getting to be close to you, getting to hear your stupid ideas and daydream with you.”

You can’t help the smile that spreads across your face.

“I missed getting to be close to you,” you echo and it comes out a whisper but it’s the truth, and it’s easy on your tongue once you get past the horrible knot of fear. “And it’s not just that. It’s more.”

Hoseok nods. Not in the way of understanding, but like he’s saying me too, me too. Like he too has something big and burning and without words emerge from his chest everytime he sees you too. Encouraged, you go on.

“I feel like I’ve been holding back from you. Like, afraid to tell you.” You have to force the words out of your body.

“Afraid? Why would you be afraid…of me?”

“I really didn’t want you to think badly of me. Sometimes I worry that if I were to share everything with everyone, that what they think would change, like — you know, never mind. It’s not as important.”

“It is as important. It is.” He looks at you so genuinely, you think you might snap.

You take a deep breath. “I just, I wanted to tell you, to talk to you—”

“No—”

The word thuds through you like a boulder, shock splayed across your face.

“No?”

“Stop. Stop talking.”

“No, Hobi, no.” You stomp your foot. “I’ve been — I’ve been trying to gather the courage to talk to you, to say this for what feels like forever and I finally have the nerve to say it and here you are telling me to stop?! No, no, I don’t think—”

Hobi grabs you by the shoulders, eyes burning with a light you can’t quite name and covers your mouth with a large hand. “Stop. Talking.” He’s deady calm and his words come out as a growl.

Coming from him, and coming from behind you.

Hobi spins you around and presses your back to his chest, his hands gripping your shoulders. Just behind where you stood a moment ago, a short distance up the ravine, a large, adolescent bear stands. Head lowered, black eyes staring furiously at the two of you, haunches raised. A growl rumbles viciously in his throat.

“What the—”

“Fuck.”

The bear stomps the ground once, huffing.

“What do we do?” you whisper.

“I think we’re supposed to play dead,” Hobi breathes. “I think he’ll leave us alone.”

“No, I think we’re supposed to run. Or climb a tree.”

“Bears can climb trees. And run.”

“Oh.”

Just as Hobi moves to pull you behind him, so that he’s the one standing between you and the huffing, snorting bear, you rip out of his hold, pressing in front of him.

“Stop that,” Hoseok hisses, trying to pull you backwards, trying to pull you away, behind him. But you stand firm, pushing him back behind you. He only manages to wrap his arms tightly around you, a human exoskeleton of sorts, his whole body trying to absorb you away from the grunting, large animal before you.

But all struggle between you ceases as the bear steps towards you and you freeze, Hoseok’s limbs locking around yours.

Saplings snap beneath the bear’s paws as he steps closer, a low growl reverberating in his throat. The forest is eerily quiet, all noise absorbed into fear, the whole world seems to be watching this very moment.

And the bear is before you, paws stomping on the loamy soil. A deadened sound.

“Oh god. Oh, Hoseok.”

His limbs tighten around yours and when he takes a step back, you come with him. But so does the bear.

When the bear leans in, you smell something rotten. The process of the forest reabsorbing itself. And you wonder, if you too, will become a part of that timeless dance today. His eyes are empty. Dark. Like the sky of a new moon lives behind them, waiting for the sun to shine once more, but stuck in the inalienable darkness of great space.

The bear sniffs you, lifting its lips to reveal thick, sharp teeth. The smell, repugnant.

Those eyes stare into you. The fear of the afternoon wallows in comparison to this feeling. But then, in a split second, it too is gone. Replaced by that kind of empty drive that feels essentially human. Ice, through your veins.

It sniffs you once. Twice. And then takes a step back. You’re sure that he’s going to lunge then, his haunches rearing up as he looks, unendingly, at you.

A single crow caws from the ravine. The sound splits the air, like a call that comes from beneath the soil and the topmost canopy at the same time. And the bear turns. Looks. As if he finally realizes he’s not alone, he takes one last look at you and with a little huff, takes another step back, turns, and ambles back up the ravine and deeper into the mountains.

Your breath is the only thing that exists. Sight, gone, though you do still see the wilderness before you. It’s just this. Shaken stutters of air through your lungs.

A second sense pierces through and you feel Hoseok’s grip on you tighten and suddenly you can’t breathe. You need to get out of here. Something isn’t right. Something’s not like what you know. You peel away from his still frozen form. A shattered breath shakes through you as your hands drop down to your side. Hobi’s still staring in the direction of the disappearing bear and you reach out to him and tug on his sweater urgently.

“C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”

He doesn’t take his eyes off the trail behind you as he follows your lead. Your hand slips into his and you tug him down the mountain.

“Hobi, let’s go. Before we run into something else.” You tug once more. “Hoseok. Please.”

It’s like he finally hears you and turns away from the ravine.

Then you’re skittering down the rocks together, and when you finally reach the well trodden trail again, you break out in a sprint. You hadn’t really realized just how deep into the forest you had traveled, but everytime the trail seems to be nearing its end, it continues. The trees keep speeding by. Hobi runs beside you, clutching at your hand like if he were to let you go the whole world would spin out of control.

In this moment all there is is the next step, breath, coming heavy, and his fingers squeezed tight around your own.

The house emerges from the thick foliage, late afternoon light spilling down around it all, mountains framing the large structure like the masterpiece it is. It’s not until the trees have parted and your feet have landed on the lawn that your pace slows. But the world doesn’t really feel like it slows down around you. It keeps spinning by.

“What the fuck was that?” Hobi breathes heavily, his hands on his knees. You crouch before him, looking up at him, eyes scanning his face as if you’re checking to make sure all still in one piece. Your hand reaches to wrap tightly around his wrist, as if it’s your turn to hold on for stability, and he doesn’t pull away. His pulse leaps wildly beneath your fingers.

“I remembered that you’re supposed to make yourself really big and really loud to scare it away.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me? I was getting ready to go out in a blaze of glory right alongside you.”

“That would have been a sight to see.”

“You would have gone out in a fiery death right alongside me, you know that right?”

You’re joking but your lungs are still frozen. Your limbs are still ready for something fiery and dangerous, but you’re here. You’re safe again. You’re okay. You’re alive. Hobi is too. And so you force a smile and go along, as if it’s the next step on the path out of the forest.

“What? You weren’t planning on playing Prince Charming and sacrificing yourself for me?”

“Never.” And he smiles, and you know it’s the biggest lie he’s told.

His eyes crinkle up in the corner when he grins like this and your breath freezes in your throat before warming through your whole body. When you breathe out again, you relax. Your limbs stutter back to sense, your sight clears, your mind quiets. How is his joy so antidotal? It radiates through you in a way you don’t quite have words for. Even when you know he’s putting on his favorite show of happiness for the sake of his friends, you know he embeds it with a genuine warmth, taken from some deep well within him.

How am I so lucky? It feels impossible. This moment, your best friend smiling at you with the relief and laughter of a near-death moment. It feels good to be like this with him. It’s been nine months since the last time things were truly like this, but it feels like it could have been years. In reality, it has been a thousand small eternities.

As a thousand questions sing in you, all you can manage to do is to reach out for him again and take the hand that you had released and squeeze it. He looks down at it, a brow raised.

“You’re okay?” It’s a question, a hope, uttered by him.

“Yeah.” You take one more deep breath. When you breath out, you imagine the kind of forest light leaving your body. You feel safe. And you turn away from the lingering fear left in your body, turn it towards something else. “It’s too bad we were interrupted.” The adrenaline of the danger finally feels like it's serving a purpose.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Yes.” You shake your head, gathering your thoughts, and stand. The distance between you feels suffocating. Like it’s too much and not enough at the same time.

He’s looking at you with all the earnesty in the world and you swear it’s true, you know that the words you need to put into the air, into his hands, into his trust, will find safety and understanding where they land. And he’s opening his mouth, tongue darting out to lick his lips, and finally an unsure hum, dancing on his mouth—

“Jin is just never going to believe what just happened.” He laughs.

That same icy feeling that burned in your belly with coldness in January returns. Rejection,

“What?”

“That we go on a walk to chat and we get interrupted by a bear. Jin will never believe it.”

Oh. And still you smile. Nod. Go along with his cues. “Jungkook would.”

He grins. Pulls your hand against his chest—though the action feels emptier now—and begins walking towards the house. Your confidence shatters. As the forest looms farther and father over your shoulder, so does the promise of your unspoken intention.

“Yeah, course,” Hoseok chuckles, as if he is completely unaware of the tension brewing within your chest. “But don’t tell him because he’ll fucking take off barefoot into the woods to try to wrestle the bear down and either put him in his place or try to befriend him. We can’t let that happen.”

You laugh. “I promise I won’t.”

“You promise?”

The intensity in his eyes make it clear that he’s not just asking you to not tell a scary story to your friend. He’s asking you something else. Asking for your word. But even as you know you have absolutely no clue what he’s speaking of, you trust him endlessly. And so without even knowing what exactly you are binding yourself to within his promise, you offer your pinky up.

“Promise.”

Hoseok grins and wraps an arm around your shoulders.

“I need to find Jin, something about dinner tonight. But I’ll see you later? We should do this more.” He’s speaking too quickly and his gaze keeps flickering between you and the house.

“Yeah. ‘Course.”

In a quick motion he leans down, presses a quick peck to your forehead and disappears into the house.

When he’s gone it feels like the weight of the entire day washes over you.

Jungkook. Then Namjoon. Now Hoseok.

How the hell has this all been one day?

The rest of the day washes together like watercolors spritzed by rain. You wander through it, a little dazed. Every moment, every word spins like a movie reel through your brain.

It’s okay for you to want like this.

What if something’s missing?

And finally, most resolutely, Hobi’s voice speaking firmly and assuredly: I missed getting to be close to you. It feels like a promise, wrapped tight and warm around your heart. But you don’t want to dare to give yourself that kind of hope. So you shove it down and wander through the rest of the day.

Dinner comes, but you can’t find the energy to face Jungkook’s grinning face, or the meaning strung in Namjoon’s gaze. You can’t even bear to think of what will be on Hoseok’s face. What today means to him. If it means anything. But you wonder. If they notice your absence, what they’re laughing about when you’re not there, what things they might say differently without your presence at the table.

You feel grateful that the day is speeding by in such a manner. At least, that is, until the sun is long gone beyond the wall of mountains and the house has quieted down as your friends drift off to bed.

It’s not long before you’re yawning, yearning for the warm, thick covers of your bed and the radiating heat of the body that sleeps next to you. But when you find yourself at the door to your bedroom you pause.

It looms.

You can’t help yourself. Instead of walking through the door to your bedroom, and the swirling question that lays on the other side, you turn on your heel and go back in the opposite direction. Your socked feet pad as silently as the night sky across the darkened floorboards. You pass closed doors, the hallway, and the sounds of chatter and warm light spilling from underneath bedroom doors. It feels like sneaking, but you’re not entirely sure what you’re hiding from.

The doors to the library open without a single squeak and you slip inside silently. A light chill passes through you. The library should be entirely obscured by darkness. But instead, the large windows open wide to the night sky and a full moon peers down at you. It feels like she’s looking at you.

Her silvery drapes spill into the library, and unlike your afternoon in the room, where the world felt split in two, the space is unified beneath the new color. Darkness, knowledge, the clarity of the moon — it all swirls together before you.

It’s like blinking awake. A strange clarity sifts through you and it’s frightening. Defenses rise within you and you’re on the move again, quick to release whatever it was the moon granted you back to the shadows of the unknown. You don’t want this understanding.

After fighting the urge to draw finger guns and James Bond lunge across the carpet, you quickly pinpoint the spot where the book had fallen. It lays closed — thank god, imagine if it had fallen open and crumpled the aging pages.

Careful not to damage it, you lift it from the floor. It’s heavier than you imagined, the beautiful book shining with age between your hands. With a quick, gentle movement, you let the book fall open in your palms and suck in a gasp as the delicate ink drawing sprawls before you.

This is not what you thought antique collectors were up to all these years.

Before you, a beautiful painting. Careful lines and graceful curves. Unfortunately, it’s not the pure beauty of the piece that makes you cry out. It’s the image itself, its contents.

A naked body, one that looks very much like yours — same stature, same valley of curves, same constellation of birthmarks and landmarks flecking your skin. Ancient, other, you, bared and put on display. And then that which has your breath stuttering in your throat: Several men, cocks hanging free and large and very very erect, all looking down on the beautiful figure like they could devour it entirely.

As you quickly learn, it turns out the human race has always been one kinky, desperate-for-fuck species.

Hoseok’s question rings in your ear: don’t you think it’s too much?

“It’s a fucking penis buffet in here,” you whisper. No one is around to laugh at your cleverness.

Except a snort and a chortle echoes from behind you. You spin around, and in the process drop the book on the table.

“That’s a good one.”

There’s a shadow emerging from the walls, peeling away like it belonged to the rock itself.

Jin steps out of the darkness, his flannel pajamas hugging his body tightly, a book held in one hand.

“Jesus, Jin, you were about to give me a heart attack,” you curse.

He raises an eyebrow, approaching. “What are you doing sneaking around this late at night?”

“I’m not sneaking,” you say. It feels like a lie once it's out in the open air. More and more feels like a lie these days. Even when it’s half truth.

“Mmm,” Jin hums.

“You scared me,” you repeat.

“I’m sorry,” he says. But he doesn’t sound sorry at all. Amusement sparks in his eye, and he reaches out to tip your chin up, to capture your flickering gaze. “What kind of mischief are you up to?”

You glance at the book and Jin’s eyes follow.

“Oh,” he says. He takes in the scene before him, but unlike you, he’s unphased. “You know there’s internet here. You don’t have to go rifling through books to find your porn anymore.”

“I know.” You say it too quickly.

Jin catches on. His gaze roves over your face, taking it in, reading you like the book you had snuck in here to page through. He sees it all.

“But maybe you don’t need the internet for that kind of thing anyways.”

“I’ve no idea what you mean.”

“You’ve had a kind of… glow since you arrived here. And not any old quarantine glow.”

You swallow.

“Still don’t know what you mean.”

“Go to bed,” Jin says, his voice low. “Do what you’re supposed to do for once.” It’s a command, but it’s said softly. With consideration.

“Alright, Jin,” you respond.

He drops his hand from your chin and steps back, his brow raised and curious. Like he’s seen everything that’s going on behind your eyes. Like he knows exactly what’s about to happen.

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more of jungkook being a shy, sweet boy please 😭😭

Jungkook is tiny when you first see him, legs carefully tucked in close on the train, sitting between two elderly women who are adamant on conversing over him. He doesn’t dare interrupt, leaning back as much as he can so they can see each other, before eventually giving into his embarrassment and scrambling out from between them.

He stands next to you then, by the left doors of the train, expertly placing his hand against the standing passenger pole so that he doesn’t have to crowd you anymore than necessary. Not that you’d mind if he did— he’s tall, broad, smells like flowers when the train jerks him forward. You know it’d be infinitely easier for him to stand closer to the door instead, that it’ll keep him from stumbling back and forth through the aisle, but he’s too polite to ask. Or maybe just too shy.

Eventually, you gesture him forward, pulling out one earbud to direct him to his new spot. “Thank you,” he says softly, switches spots with you with sparkling eyes, like he can’t believe someone would be so kind as to think of him.

From then on, that’s all you do. Think of him, that is.

He takes the same train as you every morning, likes to sit against the windows if possible, but is always the first to give up his seat for another passenger. Then, he’ll migrate towards you. Well, towards the door, but you usually stand by the door, so towards you. Ever since your first encounter, you always let him stand closer to the door, shuffling back and letting him slip past you. He always says thank you, sometimes a trio of thank you, thank you, thank you or sometimes just a nod of his head, soft cheeks pulled taut as he smiles.

He works at a daycare, this much you learn when he drops his faculty ID one day. It’s a few stops after yours (you Googled it) and is situated across a supermarket. He wears a similar ensemble of clothing each day, usually a pair of jeans and a long sleeve shirt. You know it’s because he has a sleeve of tattoos— a little unexpected! —hiding beneath the fabric. You catch sight of something on his wrist one day, tell him it’s pretty, and revel in the bright red flush that settles over his cheeks. Another trio of thank yous, this one punctuated with a bashful quirk of his lips as he fiddles with the cuff of his sleeve.

One day, you catch him on his way home from work. It’s weird seeing him at this hour, the obnoxiously white lights inside the train painting his already fair skin an even lighter color. “Oh,” he says, the tip of his nose red. It’s getting colder now, a few months since you’ve started taking the train together. “Hi.”

“Hi,” you greet back, equally as thrown off by this unexpected encounter. It’s an odd hour, your cart only hosting a few riders. You and Jungkook both get a seat and, wordlessly, you decide to sit together. You’re not sure who decides to sit with who, just that you sit together.

Jungkook’s bag brushes your shoulder and he jerks it away. “Sorry,” he hurries to apologize, placing it on the floor between his feet instead. “Um, did you get out early?”

Your brain stalls. “Wha— yeah,” you cough, trying to remember when you ever told him your work schedule. Vaguely, you think you might’ve mentioned it. But that was months ago— there’s no way Jungkook remembered that, right? “Got sent home early,” you joke, nudging his side. Jungkook offers you a tiny smile, nose and cheeks as rosy as when you were outside.

There’s a pause as the train jostles the two of you back and forth, shoulders touching, souls feeling each other out. Eventually, Jungkook says, “so, you’re free today?” You nod, trying to catch sight of him through your periphery. He’s looking down at his lap, fingers twiddling nervously. “Well, if you’re free…”